You know in the movie Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey when Bill and Ted realize that they can, because of time travel, leave things for their past selves to find? This is what I’m doing here. And hey, if time travel doesn’t end up happening, hopefully it’s of some use to folks thinking of starting a book blog.

Alright, 2007 Travis, this is you. I know, this is crazy. You just started a blog. Decent, I guess. Anyway I wouldn’t be playing the standard cocky “I’m from the future and I know better” role properly if I didn’t tell you about a few tools that might make your book blogging life a little bit easier..

Edelweiss

You know how you’re trying to visit all the different publisher websites to get their latest catalog? Don’t bother trying to add them all to your favorites – try this instead. It’s like a one stop shop for upcoming releases. And there are all sorts of advanced features for finding specific titles, authors, and publishers.

Paper by 53

Okay, wait until 2009 – this thing called the iPad will be invented. Once the app called Paper is released, get it. You can draw with it and the results are pretty nice. They’ll definitely make your weak scribbles slightly more palatable.

PicMonkey

2007 Travis, if you ever need to add text to an image, or crop something, or make it bigger, head here. There’s all kinds of fancy stuff you can do beyond the basics too.

WP Calendar

This is the last one, and it’s getting pretty specific. There’s a plugin for the blogging platform WordPress called WP Calendar that you’ll like. It puts all your posts on a calendar, so you can schedule and move things around easily. It looks like this:

That’s it, past self. Try to stay out of trouble.

You guys have any book blogging tools you consider must-haves?